


my soul seeks balance.

by cherrykirsch



Series: through the eyes of many [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (Does it count if he doesn't actually die), Amputation, Anger, Arguing, Attempted Murder, Blackwatch Genji Shimada, Blindness, Blood and Gore, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Character Study, Cyborg Genji Shimada, Family Feels, Family Issues, Forgiveness, Gen, Gore, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Killing, Omnics, Past Torture, Playboy Genji Shimada, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, Young Genji Shimada, Young Hanzo Shimada, learning to love yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 09:38:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16553360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrykirsch/pseuds/cherrykirsch
Summary: my soul seeks vengeance.Genji hates himself, he tries to piece his life back together, and despite it all, Hanzo is still his brother.





	my soul seeks balance.

Sometimes, Genji forgets that he has a brother. Hanzo is always hanging over his shoulder, tracking him down like a hunting dog to whatever party or bar he finds himself at every evening, and he looks at him with such a disappointed glare that Genji wants to walk over and punch his brother square in his pretentious fucking face. 

If anything, Hanzo acts more like his father, but Genji still loves him; no matter how much Hanzo gets on his nerves.

They spar together as the Elders watch, sword to sword, at each other’s throats like feral dogs, scratching and biting and taking any opportunity to land a killing blow. And Genji loves it, he loves the adrenaline coursing through his veins like a raging river and he loves what it makes them as brothers—the only time they are on the same page.

But Hanzo will always be his brother.

His father deals in mountains of illegal drugs and weapons, the go in and out of the house in crates filled with paper shavings and Genji has considered reporting his own family to the police just to see what happens. But he never does. Maybe because he loves his family, most probably because the Japanese Government are in the pocket of his clan and it would end up with one of his fingers missing.

And he loves his father, despite it all. He is his sparrow.

Instead, he loses himself in the touch of women, the neon lights of bars and the taste of vodka and grenadine on his tongue. He dances until his feet ache and his eyes swim and his hand is shoved down some girl’s cleavage, groping as he kisses with a wicked tongue, and when he pulls back they go to the nearest love hotel and they fuck.

Fuck. Never make love.

It’s his reputation now, not that he’s complaining, but women still come to him, drawn by something about him; maybe the green hair or the physique or his grin and his oh so charming words. 

And it’s his escape.

He doesn’t want anything to do with the clan that his family is attached to, that will become Hanzo’s someday soon, so he doesn’t pay it any mind and he fucks and drinks and makes sure that Hanzo knows he doesn’t give a single fuck.

And he knows deep down that nothing good will come from it.

* * *

He doesn’t have anything.

His heart beats heavy in his chest, what remains of flesh and blood, hidden behind chrome and wiring and vital systems that whir and click inside of him. If he flexes his hand, the chrome moves this way and that, and if he wants to stand he can, his joints expelling hot gusts of air with every movement. 

_ Repulsive _ .

Half living. Half fake.

And he fucking hates it, he hates the parts of him that keep the other part of him alive, he hates the way the plate in his chest is a constant, literally glowing reminder of his own fate, he hates his face so he covers it up with the metal plate that’s attached to the metal keeping his jaw together.

_ Disgusting _ .

“Why?”

The voice rings in his ears, metal and so much like his own, a chip in his throat to replace his damaged vocal chords that made everything come out so… mechanically. And the question makes what little blood he has boil, and he glares at the Omnic in front of him.

He scowls. “Look at me.” He clutches at the flesh arm with his mechanical one, cold and warm. “I am not human, not machine. I don’t have anything anymore. My face, my body… have been destroyed.”

Zenyatta looks at him. “You don’t have to be this way.” He tells him. “I could help you.”

“I don’t want your fucking pity.” Genji growls, venom filling his voice. “If you want to help you can kill me.”

Zenyatta tilts his head. “I don’t think you want that.” He says, and to Genji’s horror he sounds almost amused. “Not really.”

“Then what do I want?” Genji asks with malice, his hands curled into fists on his lap. “Tell me, if you’re so wise.”

Zenyatta considers Genji’s words for a couple of moments, staring as the lights on his forehead blink. “I think,” he begins, very serenely and seriously. “That you want to be understood by someone. That you want peace.”

Genji fixes his jaw. “You’re wrong.” He says and Zenyatta tilts his head in question. “I want you to fuck off.”

* * *

Everything feels wrong, so very, very wrong when Genji steps into the hall of Shimada Castle. He’s still slightly tipsy, but he knows enough about his family—what should be his family, to know that something is wrong.

And it is that Hanzo is waiting for him.

His back is facing Genji, and he is knelt in prayer, the scent of ceremonial incense wafting gently through the air. It reminds Genji of their father’s funeral, the faint traces of what remains of their mother’s memory, and he looks up at the hanging scroll, makes a face at Hanzo’s back and goes to creep quietly up to his room.

“You’re late.” Hanzo says, and Genji rolls his eyes and turns back to him. “You’ve been out all night, Genji. What are you thinking? You are a member of the Shimada Clan, one of the heads of the Clan, and you are required to attend the meetings with the Elders and I.”

Hanzo still isn’t facing him, but Genji glares any way. “You’re the eldest.” He says firmly. “I don’t need to do jack shit.”

“Then you won’t have any complaints if I cut off the cash to your account.” Hanzo says and Genji’s blood boils. “Since you won’t put any effort into the work, I don’t think you deserve the money from it.”

Genji smiles, cruelly, slowly. “Fuck it.” He says and Hanzo glances at him. “Fine. I don’t want your dirty money.”

And the words do exactly what Genji expects them to. 

Hanzo stands and turns quickly and suddenly, taking two steps closer as he seethes and scowls at Genji. “It is not dirty money.” He snaps and Genji just rolls his eyes again. “I work hard to make sure this Clan, our family stays together and you do nothing but drink and party and fuck girls who only want you because you have money.”

Genji grins lazily and tucks his hands into his pockets. “That’s not true.” He says and Hanzo glares at him in question. “Sometimes I fuck guys too.”

Hanzo charges at him, grabs him by his front and tries to pull him up and off his feet. But Genji is not a boy anymore, and they are almost the same height, mature, older, fully grown. 

“You are a disgrace.” Hanzo spits.

“That’s rich coming from you.” Genji replies and as he stares at Hanzo, his fist in the front of his tunic loosens and he drops Genji as if he was as repulsive as a dead rat. “I hate to see what they’ve done to you, Hanzo. You’re being used as a pawn, tricked and deceived by other people’s agendas.”

“You know nothing of what I’ve done to protect you!” Hanzo snaps. “What sacrifices I have made in your name, you are ignorant to your family and your life around you.”

Genji snorts, glares at Hanzo. “I know what dirty shit you’ve been doing; firearms, drugs, assassination? I thought you were above that Hanzo.” He says and he feels the anger rolling off Hanzo with the force of a tsunami, but he looks the bear directly in the eye as he pokes it. “You said that after father dies things were going to change, you’d change the Clan for the better; but you’ve been sucked into the same web of manipulation that father had. We’re not rich for the right reasons, all of it is built on blood money.”

He doesn’t see it coming. He should have, really.

The blade bites into Genji’s shoulder, shooting electricity through his bones as hot as fire as he reels and gasps and stumbles backwards. His hands scramble for something to hold on to and they fall onto the blade; he tries to pull it out of him, wincing as slick blood drips from the deep gashes on his palm and onto the tatami mat floor, but Hanzo does not move, staring with the look of something furious deep into Genji’s eyes.

It’s like their training—whoever gets the first debilitating strike usually wins.

Usually, Genji delivers the first strike, but still Hanzo wins. And he sees the pure rage in Hanzo’s eyes and he knows truly and deeply that Hanzo means to kill him, and he knows he is going to die.

“What…” Genji begins, chest heaving as he forces the words out through grit teeth and excruciating pain. “What are you doing, Hanzo?!”

Hanzo pushes the blade further in and Genji lets out a strangled cry, removing his hands from the blade to snatch at the sleeves of Hanzo’s robes, coating the blue and white with a layer of scarlet blood.

“The right thing.” Hanzo replies and, with a single motion yanks the blade from Genji’s shoulder, watching as he crumples to his knees and scrambles away when Hanzo draws closer. “Don’t make this harder than it already is, Genji.”

He raises the sword and Genji narrowly misses losing his head as he rolls out of the way of Hanzo’s strike. He gasps as he struggles to his feet, clutching his bloodied shoulder.

“You would kill?” Genji asks bitterly, his voice an orchestra of pain and blood as Hanzo’s hand tightens on the blade handle. “You would kill at the wish of your manipulators? You mean to kill your brother?”

Hanzo looks at him and Genji can’t recognise the look staring back at him. Hanzo is a practised blank slate, empty and cold, and Genji realises that the man standing before him is a stranger.

“You are no brother of mine.” Hanzo replies and Genji’s heart drops. “You are but an obstacle standing in the way of the clan, and something must be done.”

Hanzo charges, and Genji reaches behind him for the sword on the stand, lifting it in front of him as quickly as Hanzo slashes at his face. Their hands shake, locked sword to sword, before Hanzo kicks Genji square in the chest and catches his face with the razor-sharp edge of the blade. It rips a diagonal, deep cut across his left eye and he screams as he clutches at his overflowing eye socket, dripping pooling blood from between his fingers.

“Hanzo!” Genji screams, clutching desperately at his face as Hanzo draws closer, peering at him with one eye overflowing with pained tears and the other blood. “You mean to kill me? You disgrace this family! Stop now, before you do something you regret.”

“No,” Hanzo says and the word startles Genji, blunt and forceful and from behind him. “You are the disgrace. You dishonour our family, Genji, you dishonour our father—”

He drives the blade through Genji’s side and Genji gasps, sharp and short, looking slowly down to see the silver blade jutting right through him, the blood travelling from the inside of him to the out using the blade, splattering at his feet.

“He—He loved me.” Genji chokes as he pulls himself from the sword and collapses, his legs unsteady as his mouth overflows with blood. “He loved—us, Hanzo… I do not dishonour him.”

Hanzo ignores him. “You are a disgrace.” He spits.

Genji looks up at him. “You dishonour me.” He says it as plainly as he can, but Hanzo swells.

He roars and lunges at Genji, trapping him beneath his body as he drops the sword and begins to beat him.  _ Somehow _ , Genji thinks miserably,  _ this is worse _ . Hanzo’s hands shatter his jaw and nose, bruise and mar his face with scratches so deep they draw thick beads of blood.

He watches as Hanzo screams and brutalises him and then he stops, reaches for the sword and raises it over Genji’s uninjured right eye.

“You don’t need to see what will be done to you.” Hanzo says.

And Genji realizes fleetingly that this is Hanzo’s final mercy to him, and then his world becomes pain and darkness as the blade plunges into his eye.

He screams and sobs and tries to staunch the flow of blood, but Hands are holding him down and he cannot reach for his body any longer. He feels a saw dragging across his left arm and then a great loss, when he tries to move his legs they go too, and they take his fingers on his right hand and cut up his remaining arm when he tries to grasp onto anything.

And they scar his face further and he knows what Hanzo means now, he is a disgrace, and he sobs as they break and take him apart like a doll, powerless to stop them. The worst thing is that he isn’t dead yet, and he knows because all he feels is pain.

When they leave him, broken, a bloody lump on tatami, it’s all he can do to whimper, and then he wakes up.

* * *

Jesse McCree unexpectedly becomes a friend, somehow. It’s all very juvenile: they eat lunch at the same table, and are paired together on missions and Jesse goes with him to Moira when he breaks during missions – he grits his teeth.

Breaks. Not injured.

Jesse doesn’t seem to mind that he breaks instead of bleeds. “I’ve seen stranger, I don’t pay it any mind.” He tells him when Genji asks him and Genji wishes he could ignore it.

If he’s too far broken, Doctor Ziegler fixes him and they don’t talk; she plays music he likes and they work, he closes his eyes until she’s finished and then he pulls on his thick sweatshirt and leaves. He is grateful to her, he doesn’t think he hates her, she did what she could and what she thought was right—she let him walk again, but he wishes he didn’t look like he did.

He hates himself. He hates his brother. He hates so furiously he seethes with it. But he tries not to think about his old life so much, especially not Hanzo and not their home either—it still creeps up on him sometimes though.

Sometimes he passes someone with an angular face and long black hair and his heart thuds in his chest. Glancing over his shoulder reveals someone who definitely doesn’t look like Hanzo and he feels silly for stopping dead in the street. 

When he’s lowest, he remembers his father, and then he wishes he could remember his mother’s face.

* * *

Darkness blurs before him but blood roars in his ears, voices shouting and hands touching his body, his joints constrict under a great pressure and he moans at the wave of pain that rolls through his body, trying to struggle away.

“Genji?” A female voice asks him in a very particular Swiss accent. “Genji, can you hear me?”

He struggles, his head snapping back and forth as his chest heaves. “I can’t see.” He moans quietly. “I can’t see. Everything hurts…” He hisses out the last word, drawing it out as a wave of pain crashes over him.

He feels a pair of warm hands cupping his cheeks and he instantly feels relaxed, he slowly stops struggling. “I found you, and I want to help you.” The voice says and Genji fixes his face in the direction of her. “I can help you see again, and I can help you walk and feel. But I need your permission, Genji.”

Permission? What did his permission matter? He was going to die anyway, might as well be under the knife instead of at the hands of someone else.

“I want to walk.” Genji says. “I want to see.”

The hand caresses his cheek soothingly, pushes his blood-soaked hair back from his face. “I promise you’re in good hands.” She tells him very softly. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure you’ll be okay.”

It sounds familiar, and he doesn’t know why, but then he feels a stab of something in his arm and his head starts to go fuzzy and spin, different memories spinning through his mind so fast he can’t seem to grasp them. He fixes the last straw of his concentration and tries again, and, miraculously, he grabs onto something.

It’s his father’s funeral. The headstone marble and cold as he hugs it, a tiny scared boy. He doesn’t want to let go, he’s beginning to forget to colour of his father’s eyes. A hand grips his shoulder and pulls him up, his eyes brimming with tears as he lets the person tug him up and to his feet and turn him towards him.

Hanzo’s piercing face stares down at him, and for a moment he wonders if his brother is going to scold him for crying. But, instead he does the most amazing thing, and Genji can do nothing but stand stock still and stare.

Hanzo bends down on one knee, hugs him, and begins to cry.

* * *

Genji jolts awake, and he knows that something isn’t right.

His eyes make everything clearer, like he’s staring through a camera lens, and he can see a spider forming its web in the far corner of the room, a drip of condensation sliding down the outside of the glass on his bedside table. He swallows.

His throat feels tinny and tastes metallic, and he stops dead as he reaches for the glass, staring at his hand. It’s not his—not muscles and bones, that is—it’s metallic and the colour of gunmetal, and when he wills his hand to turn this way and that it does. He bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, winces but does not wake up. 

Any hope of this being some sick nightmare is far gone. This hand is his and he doesn’t know how—

_ But he does. _

His mind immediately fills in the blanks that he tried to supress. He remembers Hanzo attacking him, him leaning over him and giving him the mercy of losing his other eye, the Elders taking him apart, drowning in blood and pain. And then he starts hyperventilating.

A trembling hand reaches for the IV and rips it out of his arm, and he hisses at the pain as the alarm blares. He swings his legs out of bed and staggers across the room, knocking into trolleys and other beds and causing everything on them to crash down on the floor. He can hear footsteps charging down the corridor, three sets it sounds like, and he snatches up a scalpel and points it at the door just as it opens.

A blonde woman in a white coat is looking at him in concern, tailed by someone in black and another blond in blue. She takes a step towards him.

“Genji, I—” She begins, her lips just beginning to curve around the next word before he stops her.

“I could kill you in ten different ways with this scalpel.” Genji tells her, and he doesn’t recognise the sound of his voice. “I could kill you in sixty with the rest of your equipment. Who are you?”

The woman raises her hands slowly, the men behind her do not. “My name is Doctor Angela Zeigler.” She says slowly and kindly, and Genji’s heart squeezes in his chest.

His hand trembles as he points the scalpel at her. “What did you do to me?” He asks, his voice shaking. “What did you do to my body?”

Angela looks at him, and for a moment looks unsure. “I saved you.” She says finally. “I didn’t want to stand back and watch you die in that way. You… You didn’t deserve it.” His eyes blur, and he only realises he’s crying when he falls to his knees and the scalpel clatters to the floor.

Angela is on him in an instant, her arms wrapped out his shaking form. He can’t help but feel pathetic like this, curled up and sobbing in front of someone he doesn’t know, and he hates the way he leans into her touch.

“You were the one who was talking to me.” Genji chokes out as he looks up and into her eyes. “Before.”

Angela nods. “Yes.” She says softly, and then she looks down at her knees, her hand rubbing soothing circles on his back. “I’m sorry for doing this to you. I know it probably isn’t what you wanted.”

Genji looks at her, and she looks kind, like a better person than he’ll ever hope to be and his heart leaps into his throat. Despite everything, despite this new body, despite her being the one to do this to him; he doesn’t hate her. He hates a million and one things but he doesn’t think he could hate her.

“You let me walk again.” He says simply. “You let me see. Thank you, Doctor Zeigler, don’t apologise.”

As Angela smiles at him, her hand smoothing back his hair, he thinks he sees a glimpse of his mother’s face. Only for a second, and then it’s gone, lost to everything irrevocably her. Like it wasn’t even there in the first place.

* * *

Zenyatta doesn’t give up, and eventually Genji gives in. He lets the monk lead him to Shambali with cynicism and tries not to roll his eyes when Zenyatta tells him that he should practice meditating for ten minutes every day.

Why do that when he could think about how he wants to kill himself?

Sometimes he shows up and pretends to meditate with Zenyatta for an hour, other times he goes to the highest point of the Sanctum, looks off over the mountains and snow and thinks about jumping off, or he thinks about Hanamura. He always thinks of Hanamura.

He sighs and leans back on his hands, jumping and almost toppling off the ledge he was sat comfortably on.

“I thought I might find you here.” Zenyatta’s tranquil voice says and Genji scowls into the sunset as Zenyatta sits beside him. “It is very peaceful. I see why you like this place so much.”

“What do you want?” Genji snaps, tugging his hoodie further up his chest. “Can’t you leave me alone?”

Zenyatta hums in amusement at him and Genji hates how he’s never fazed by anything he says. “I would like to better know my student, even if he tries to evade me.” Genji almost feels bad for avoiding Zenyatta. Almost. “What do you think about when you come up here?” He asks.

Genji’s head snaps in his direction and he glares straight into Zenyatta’s cybernetic eyes. “You fucking off.” He says. “I only agreed to this so you would leave me alone.”

“I know.” Zenyatta says and Genji’s mouth snaps closed, seething to himself. “But I also think part of you wants me to help you. So, tell me Genji, what do you think of while you’re up here?”

He thinks about retorting rudely, but doesn’t, and instead he gives in. “Hanamura.” He says quietly, looking away from Zenyatta’s curious gaze. “My home. Sometimes of Hanzo, how I want to rip his guts out.”

Zenyatta chuckles. “That’s quite the image.” He says and Genji can’t help but smile just a little bit. “I don’t think it would do you any good though. He’s your only family.”

Genji scowls as he tugs his knees to his chest. “Family doesn’t kill each other.” He says. “I hate him.”

Zenyatta nods, he doesn’t even try to convince Genji otherwise, which he appreciates. He hears the orbs around Zenyatta’s head hum with energy, and he watches the sunset reflect golden off of his chrome body. 

“I want to help you, Genji.” Zenyatta says finally, and the words as so sincere that it shocks him. “I want you to be at peace with yourself. But I can’t do that if you don’t want that. Your negativity is a pole to any positivity I have; you have to help yourself before I can help you.”

Genji closes his eyes, sucks in a deep breath of cool mountain air. “I want to be at peace with myself.” He says quietly, carefully, afraid to say it. “But I don’t know  _ how _ .”

"To heal, to move past all your pain and suffering," Zenyatta says, so serenely calm that it makes Genji mad, anger boiling in his veins. "You need to let go. Not forgive, but let go." 

Genji reels around to him, his eyes snapping open as he glares at him. "I can't let go. I was betrayed by my brother, killed by his hands and brought back unwillingly, I can never let go of all the anger and pain he has put me through." He seethes quietly. "Do you think I want this body? To not be human, to not be flesh and blood? You wouldn't understand, you're all metal and technology, you'd never know how it feels to be breathing." 

Zenyatta is quiet for a moment, and Genji sits silently, chest heaving as his own words sink into himself, wondering if he offended him. 

"Maybe I am not flesh and blood, but I have a soul." He says and then he reaches out to touch Genji's forehead, his fingers moving to unlatch the faceplate from his jaw, pulling it away and to hold in front of Genji so he can see every scarred and burned inch of his face that he hid for so long. "And you do too."

And Genji wants to believe him, so he does.

* * *

When Genji returns to the place he died, on the day he died, he knows Hanzo will be there. He always will be, and Genji always used to watch him when he did. It would always be the same; he’d arrive in the dead of night, get inside to the hall where his blood still stained the tatami, light an incense, and then he’d pray.

The first time he saw it, he didn’t believe Hanzo would mourn for him. Now he knows that Hanzo carries the regret of Genji’s blood on his hands like a ten-pound weight.

“You are not the first assassin sent to kill me,” Hanzo’s voice says, sending a shiver up his spine. “And you will not be the last.”

Obviously, Hanzo doesn’t recognize him. Genji could play this to his advantage. He leaps down from the ceiling, hardly making a sound as his feet plant firmly down onto the tatami, his fingers skimming it.

“You are bold to come to Shimada castle, the den of your enemies.” Genji says and he can feel the anger rolling off Hanzo in waves.

His hand grasps his bow as he speaks. “This was once my home. Did your masters not tell you who I was?!”

Genji dodges the arrow sent at him easily, moving his body effortlessly as the arrow flies past him.

“I know who you are, Hanzo.” He says and he watches as his brother’s eyes widen, and then he pulls back the string and releases another arrow. This one curves, and Genji has to lower himself into a crouching position to avoid it. He rises slowly as he speaks. “I know you come here every year, on the same day—” Hanzo releases three arrows this time, and he ducks behind the paper lanterns to avoid them. “You risk so much to honour someone you murdered!”

He jerks his hand and three shurikens pop from his knuckles as he darts around the other side of the lanterns and throws them in a spinning arc towards Hanzo. Non-lethally, of course. He knocks them away with his bow and they embed into the wall behind him.

To Genji, this feels like some kind of catharsis.

The anger and pain are evident in Hanzo’s face as he notches another arrow. “You know nothing of what happened!”

Hanzo fires and Genji brings his sword up to protect his vitals, knocked back and through the paper lantern with the force of it. He backflips and lands below the walkway, dashing down it as Hanzo runs to the railing and aims a scatter arrow at his feet; he misses the shatter under the bridge, but has to deflect as he exits it, kicking off up the wall as he lands back on the tatami.

He looks back at the balcony and hears Hanzo following when he darts onto it with a flash of green and hides behind a pillar.

“I know you tell yourself that your brother disobeyed the clan…” Hanzo’s arrow lands a little too close to him for comfort, so he moves behind him. “And that you had to kill him to maintain order. That it was your duty.”

Slowly Hanzo pulls the last two arrows from his quiver. “It was my duty. And my burden.”

He releases the first of the two arrows, and Genji deflects it easily, knocking it away from him with his sword. And then Hanzo glares, looks at him with an expression so strikingly familiar as he notches the final arrow, pulls back the string.

“That does not mean I do not honour him!” 

The arrow flies and Genji flings his whole body forward, watching in detail as his sword slicing Hanzo’s arrow clean in two. For a moment, Hanzo just stares, and then he grits his teeth and lunges.

When Hanzo’s bow connects, eager to kill or at least maim, Genji realises he has to fight to get Hanzo into the position he wants him. So, he does, and when the time is right he knocks Hanzo back into the railing and points his sword at his throat.

“You think you honour your brother Genji with incense offerings?” He says, voice strained. “Honour resides in one’s actions.”

Hanzo isn’t looking at him, his hands shake as he holds the bow steady. “You dare to lecture me about honour?” He hears the anger seething in Hanzo’s voice. “You are not worthy to say his name!”

Hanzo knocks Genji’s sword from his bow and twists around, forcing his neck against the bow, straining the drawstring before he throws Genji aside. He darts around him and Genji turns in time to see Hanzo slide and snatch up the arrow latched in the floor, rip it from the wood and notch it, the exposed tattoo glowing blue.

“ _ Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau! _ ”

With a cry, Hanzo releases the arrow, twin dragons sprouting from the arrow head in a blast of electricity and hot air. Genji reaches for his katana, the blade glowing green as he pulls it from his back and spins it, his own dragon appearing in a blast of green electricity with his own cry of, “ _ Ryūjin no ken wo kurae! _ ”, moving forward towards Hanzo’s dragons with the motion of his blade.

Genji can see the shock on Hanzo’s face, the green reflecting brilliantly in his wide eyes. And he sees the pain too, the not wanting to believe what’s in front of him as his two dragons are reflected back at him, the force sending him skidding back and down to his knees.

He almost feels bad. And some part of him does; despite it all, he still loves Hanzo. But he’s still playing a part.

“Only a Shimada can control the Dragons,” Hanzo says, and he sounds broken. “Who  _ are you? _ ” In a flash of green light, he is beside Hanzo, his sword held against his neck. He feels Hanzo relax beneath him, give in. “Do it then. Kill me.”

Slowly, Genji moves back, sheathing his sword. “No.” He says firmly. “I will not give you the death you wish for. You still have a purpose in this life, brother.”

“No!” Hanzo says, every syllable oozing disbelief as he scrambles to his feet, turning to face Genji. “How…? My brother is dead!”

Genji reaches behind his head, pressing firmly on the notches on his crown, the mask releasing with a hiss of hot air. And Hanzo watches in shock as he moves the mask from his face and stares at Hanzo with the same eyes, the same facial structure, and Hanzo just knows it’s him.

And he wants to cry, sob into his big brother’s chest and tell him that he’s sorry, that he loves him. But he doesn’t, because Hanzo won’t allow it, and he won’t allow himself to do it.

Hanzo looks like he’s about to break, and his lips form his name. “ _ Genji. _ ” He takes a small step forward, unwilling to believe his eyes almost. “What have you become?”

Genji replaces the mask and walks towards him. “I have accepted what I am and I have forgiven you.” He places a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder, fleetingly as he passes, it’s all he’ll allow himself to do. “Now you must forgive yourself. The world is changing once again, Hanzo.”

He stops at the edge of the balcony, casts one last glance back at his brother. “And it’s time to pick a side.”

Genji leaps onto the nearest rampart, glowing green and glistening sliver against the lights of the city below him, and he hears Hanzo rip an arrow from the wall, draw back his bow and aim.

“Real life is not like the stories our father told us!” Hanzo cried, enraged as he stares at Genji. “You are a fool for believing it so!”

Genji closes his eyes and breathes in deep, ignores the ache deep in his chest. “Perhaps I am a fool to think that there is still hope for you, but I do.” He hears Hanzo’s grip slacken behind him, he can almost see his anger and bow fall. “Think on that, brother.”

It hurts to leave, but he has to. More than recruiting Hanzo for Overwatch, more than anything, Genji just wants his brother back.

And he knows that Hanzo will return to him when he is ready—and he hopes he will be soon.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: [ cherry-kirsch ](cherry-kirsch.tumblr.com) || twitter: [ cherriwrites ](https://twitter.com/cherriwrites)


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